bigglesfandomcom-20200215-history
The Case of the Mandarin's Treasure Chest
The Case of the Mandarin's Treasure Chest is the second short story in the anthology Biggles of the Special Air Police which was first published in 1953. Once more, Biggles goes to China. He had just been there in Biggles Gets His Men and Biggles in the Gobi. In the anthology, this story is preceded by The Case of the Black Gauntlet and followed by The Case of the Lost Souls. Although this story came out in 1953, it is almost certain that it was written before 1952. See the section on incongruities below. Synopsis Another treasure hunt story. Biggles is sent to a chest of valuable cultural artefacts from China. Its owner, Wung Ling, has promised to donate its contents to the British Museum. Plot (Click on expand to read) Wung Ling, a medical student at Oxford, has donated his family's collection of priceless art treasures to the British Museum, if they can go and retrieve it. His family had been wealthy mandarins at Pao-Tan, in Kweichow province in westen China. Over the centuries, they had amassed art treasures comprising paintings, manuscripts and porcelain. With the Japanese invasion during the Second World War, Wung Ling's father had packed the objects in a trunk and had buried it in the garden of their house. After the war ended, the Communist takeover of China prevented any effort to retreive the treasure. Now that his father had died, he alone knew where the trunk had been buried. The Air Police crew sets off from Calcutta in a Wellington, following the course of the Burma Road and then the river Shagpo, navigation landmarks which Wung Ling is confident will lead them to his home. But as Biggles told Raymond earlier, no treasure hunt ever goes according to plan. Nearing their destination, Wung Ling becomes unsure where they are. The river might have shifted course, and worse, the countryside is desolate and without any prominent landmarks. At length, Biggles puts down on a corn field. Finally Wung Ling recognises a pile of stones as the ruins of his house. Leaving Algy with the plane and Bertie at the gun turret, the rest head out ready to dig. The next snag is the appearance of several horsemen who take potshots at them with their rifles. More troops join them. Algy taxis closer to the ruins while Bertie covers the party with his machine guns. All this while, Biggles and Wung Ling continue to search for the spot to dig. By locating the foundations of the main door, Wung Ling finally gets his bearings and heads to the correct spot. Removing the trunk proves tedious and meanwhile the enemy launches a full scale attack but is beaten off by fire from both Bertie and Algy at the Wellington turrets. The attacking troops begin to behave curiously. They jump up and point to a strange black cloud in the distance and then ride off. The dark mass, perhaps a storm, is fast approaching the plane. By now the trunk has been pulled out of the ground and Biggles and Wung Ling carry it hurriedly to the Wellington. They get on board just in time. The black mass batters the airframe--it turns out to be a swarm of locusts. Would the locusts damage the aircraft? Fortunately, Biggles manages to take off. Some distance away, they land to take a look. There are smears everywhere but nothing serious has been damaged. The rest of the flight home is uneventful. The treasure is delivered to the museum and Wung Ling receives a payment which allows him to finish his medical studies. Characters The Special Air Police *Air Commodore Raymond *Biggles *Algy Lacey *Ginger Hebblethwaite *Bertie Lissie Others *Wung Ling Aircraft *Vickers Wellington Places Visited *London, Scotland Yard - Raymond's office *Pao-Tan, in the province of Kweichow, China *Dum Dum, Calcutta - jump off point for the mission. Why not Dacca? It would have been nearer and he had just used that in Biggles in the Gobi. Mentioned *Hong Kong - the nearest jumping-off point but rejected because there might be too much air activity in the area. Other Research Notes References to the past Incongruities *The character of Wung Ling first meets Biggles here. Yet in the book Biggles Follows On which was published in 1952, a year earlier, Biggles mentions Dr Wung Ling and how he had helped the doctor salvage his father's treasure chest. Mysteriously, the footnote in Follows On refers readers to the story of The Case of the Mandarin's Treasure Chest in Biggles Air Detective published in 1950, but this book does not contain the story at all! *Thus it seems likely that had written this story before he wrote Biggles Follows On in 1952. Perhaps it formed part of his "stock" and he thought it had been published in Biggles Air Detective when it hadn't. *Ginger seemed surprised to be caught in a swarm of locusts. Had he forgotten his experience in The Adventure of the Purple Cloud? Chronology *Although the story was published in 1953, the character of Wung Ling would "reappear" for the "second" time in Biggles Follows On which is set during the Korean War. Therefore this story has to take place before the events in Follows On. A plausible timeframe is 1949-1950. Category:Short stories Category:Biggles short stories Category:Treasure hunt stories